Cocoa & Summits
by Ellie12
Summary: The Solo family makes a little time for winter fun, while Leia is at a summit. Written for the January 2020 HanLeia Challenge prompt "snow." Headcanons for me into the same universe as my "Crashing into Place" but stands on its own.


Han was still finishing the power down cycle when he heard the ramp lower, and a squeal of laughter echo back into the ship. Smiling, he leaned forward into the viewscreen, peering down at the white expanse around the ship. The landing pads had only been cleared enough that the directional markers and beacons showed; everything around them was blankly white, with the occasional sheen of ice.

Bounding across that expanse, though, was a brilliant blue blob, what might have been very well insulated limbs all akimbo as she eventually crashed face-first into a snowbank. He could hear the shriek even from inside the ship; it sounded like a happy shriek, though from this distance it could be hard to tell. As he watched another form come into view, icy blue and white barely contrasting with the landscape, he knew it was a shriek of happiness, as his daughter rolled over to face his wife, giggling and arms and legs flailing in the snow, what little he could see of her face already pink.

Leia turned around for just a moment, looking back up to him in the cockpit, a smile canting her lips. Without looking, he reached down and flipped the switch for the exterior comm.

"She stuck? Do I need to power back up and get her outta there with the retractor claw?"

Another shriek of laughter, loud enough to reach into the ship, left him grinning down at them, and hurrying through shutting down the ship. That he could do it with little conscious thought was useful, as he mostly watched out the viewscreen as his family played in the snow, Leia eventually tugging a giggling Jaina out of the snowbank and showing her how to make snowballs instead. Once the ship was ready to close up, he bundled himself into a heavy vest and fleeced coat, preparing himself for the onslaught.

He was barely two steps down the ramp when the first snowball hit. It didn't hit him, merely splattered at the foot of the ramp, followed by a hail of giggles, and then a snowball closer to his foot.

He wasn't a great actor, but tried to muster his most distressed voice. "Oh no, we're under attack by snow monsters!"

Two laughs returned to him, the heady giggles of his daughter and Leia's deeper chuckle. The snowball that then launched at him, hitting his calf, was surely her work.

Doing his best imitation of a Wookie war cry, he barrelled down the ramp, and dove for the snow bank he'd seen just to the right of where he'd seen them preparing their snowballs. A fresh volley of them flew at him, a few just making contact, but he got more snow on him from the crash landing into the drift than from the attack. Rolling over, he peered above the mound of snow, and was promptly hit in the ear with a snowball.

"Surrender!"

Quickly scraping together a few snowballs of his own, he sent them towards the females. "Solos don't surrender!"

Another round of snowballs flew at him, mostly falling short, but one very accurate one-obviously Leia's handiwork-hit him square in the chest.

"Organas negotiate," came Leia's offer.

Aiming carefully, he tossed one snowball to hit Jaina on the edge of her shoulder, and another that Leia managed to avoid. Darned Force.

"Terms?"

There was muffled chatter behind the other snowbank, before Jaina piped up with a demand of, "Hot cocoa!"

"For everyone, or just for your highness?" He rose from where he'd been crouching, knees protesting slightly, and sauntered over to them.

"Everyone. We're all about fairness, right Jaina?"

"Yes! Cocoa for everyone! But just for you and me tomorrow, Daddy."

"None for Mom tomorrow?" He wrapped his arm around Leia, and raised and eyebrow.

"No, 'cause she's not going to play in the snow with us tomorrow. We get cocoa after we go on the snowskimmers!"

"That doesn't seem very fair." But he smirked at Leia as he said it, before scooping up Jaina, snow falling off of her.

She patted his shoulder and looked back at her mother. "Can we bring her some back after?"

"'Course. But we all need to find some now, so let's get inside, huh?"

The wind was picking up, and more flurries were falling from the sky, threatening to drift over the landing pads once more. He hit the controls to close the Falcon's ramp, and they all huddled together as they followed the blue glow of the entry to the habitation complex. The heat radiating from it was apparent ten meters away.

"Your summit doesn't start til tomorrow morning, right? We all got time for cocoa together now?"

"Nice try." She poked one gloved finger into his ribs, which wasn't particularly effective through his puffy parka. "You know there's that reception tonight. _Cocoa_ won't get you out of it."

"Thought I was here for babysitting."

"It's not _babysitting_ when it's your own child, Han. And you interviewed the caretaker we're using three times before we came."

"Father-daughter snowscape adventure time, then. But you can't blame me for trying."

She did laugh at that. "No, I can't, because you know those Bothans are going to be here, and they're going to try and corner me to complain about their negotiations again. Which are completely irrelevant to a summit on educational standards."

He pressed the access button to seal the entry hatch behind them, then tugged at a few of the zippers on his coat, relaxing into the indoor warmth. Jaina shifted in his arms, tugging at her own coat. He paused, and unzipped it for her, before shifting her to the other hip.

"You need me to run interference then?"

"Maybe." There was a wink in her tone.

"Or be an interference? I could corner one of them, ask about that shipment of comms parts."

"What shipment of comms parts?"

"Exactly."

"Interference, not a galactic incident. You know they're touchy."

"But you love it when I cause those." He winked at her, and she had the audacity to glare back at him, then pull out her datapad.

"Our suite should be ready." She pulled up a schematic of the pod they were in, and zoomed in to their position. "Looks like we can stop about a hundred meters up here, and get some hot cocoa before we head there. Your treat, of course."

"Extra whipped cream then?"

"Yes!" cheered Jaina.

"Your wish is my command, ladies." He deposited Jaina in Leia's arms, then swept into a bow with a little wink.

Leia rolled her eyes, but Jaina squealed in delight.

"Big one, please, Daddy!"

"A big one will be bigger than you!"

"Yay!"

Leia was laughing-maybe at Jaina, probably at him. He shook his head, but smiled as he headed into the cafe to get hot cocoa for both his ladies, and himself. He'd get two larges, one for Leia and one ostensibly for Jaina, and a small for himself, and just drink whatever Jaina left. When he returned with drinks, his daughter grabbed the big cup and took a gulp, beaming at him.

He returned the smile, and handed Leia her drink. "C'mon, ladies, let's go find our rooms, and make a game plan for the rest of this trip. Mom's gotta work, but we need to make a plan for those snowskimmers, kiddo. And maybe grab a nap."

"Skimmers!" She took another gulp of the hot cocoa, but it was obvious she was already fading. Hopefully she'd sleep through their reception. He wished he could sleep through it, too.

"You two are going to have a lot of fun these next few days."

"You can always skip out early and play with us."

"Maybe you can make a few plans around my summit schedule? I think we're done early day after tomorrow."

"Yeah, let's go get settled, and we'll figure it out. There's a sliding place, too, we could all do that together."

They wound their way through the habitation complex, the silvery glow of the exterior snow making the cityscape around them almost magical. It would be nice, for a change, to be able to spend time as a family and have a little fun together, in addition to the work of the galaxy.

The next day's meetings ran long, but when Leia returned to their temporary quarters for the evening, she was greeted with a shriek of delight, and a happy, fleece-clad four-year-old.

"Mamma! Skimmers were so much fun!" squealed Jaina.

"Were they?" Leia picked her up and gave her a swirl around, before putting her back down and heading further into the quarters.

"Yeah! Daddy let me fly!"

"Oh he did, did he?" They'd had a long-running quasi-argument over how much flying experience Jaina had been granted.

"Just a little," drawled Han, as she entered the sitting room.

Raising an eyebrow, she waited for him to elaborate. Instead, he offered her a to-go cup, still warm. She took a tentative sip, the hot cocoa warming her from the inside.

"A little?"

"A lot! Way out over the snow, and there was a lake, and it was frozen!" Jaina pirouetted, and pointed out the window at the snowy landscape beyond.

Han wrapped an arm around her and drew her down onto the sofa next to him. "Just a little, ridin' on my lap. She helped steer."

They had long ago decided steering was an acceptable compromise activity-sitting in a lap, her hands on the controls as someone else truly flew.

"Ah," she said, smiling and taking another sip of the cocoa. "You helped decide where to go?"

"Yes!"

She sunk deeper into the plush sofa, feeling the soft blanket draped over the back of it, and the warmth of her husband next to her as he sat back as well, propping thickly-socked feet up on the kaffe table in front of it. "What was your favorite thing?"

"We saw a SNOW CAT!" she squealed, bouncing over to the couch and hopping up next to her mother. The girl had obviously had an exciting afternoon, and she was sure she'd crash hard later than night. Surely she was still running on adrenaline and cocoa at this point.

"A snow cat? Those are supposed to be quite rare. Where did you see it?"

"By the lake! Daddy brought cocoa _with_ us, and we stopped to drink it and it we turned off the skimmer and it was really quiet and we were really quiet and we were starting to get cold even with the cocoa. But then, when we were getting ready to start the skimmer back up there was a _crunch_, down where it was icy by the lake and Daddy got scared and almost pulled out his blaster but I told him it was a kitty and he _shushed_ me but I was good and stayed really quiet and saw the snow cat. He saw us, though, even though I was really, really quiet and didn't talk hardly at all, and he ran back off into the trees." Jaina nodded definitively.

Leia was well familiar with her daughter's idea of "quiet"-it was much like the run-on story she'd recounted just now. "Snow cats are endangered, and very rare. You're both lucky to have seen it. I wish I'd been along."

"You can come tomorrow. Right? You're done at 1400?"

"Thankfully, yes."

"I made us a reservation at that sliding place for 1500. Should have time to get changed into something warmer than this." Han pinched the thin, formal material of her work dress. It was a woolen, but not a very thick one, and not quite enough to keep the planetary chill completely at bay. The cocoa was helping though.

"That sounds like the perfect way to spend an afternoon." She propped her own, furrily booted feet up on the table as Han smirked at her, and drank the rest of the warm, sweet cocoa.

Lights had been buried within the snow and ice, illuminating it in a whirl of colors that spun even faster as they hurtled down the hill. Jaina's shriek of joy was not the only one at the sliding hill, as half a dozen families partook of the simple fun. Even the cold couldn't mar the delight of getting to do something so average together.

After a few solo slides down the baby hill, they'd all gotten one of the bigger slides, and stacked on it, Jaina in Leia's lap and Leia in Han's, his arms around all of them. It might not have just been Jaina shrieking with the joy of flying down the hill, though between their speed and the layers of protective clothing, it was difficult to tell.

As they reached the bottom of the hill, Han shifted his weight, and the slider spun, twirling them all around once, twice, before they all toppled off into a laughing heap.

"Again!" demanded Jaina.

"Yeah, let's go again!" He'd have wanted to go again-because that was definitely more fun than anything he'd ever done in the snow as a kid-even if his daughter's enthusiasm wasn't catching. He helped her up, then spent perhaps a few seconds longer than truly necessary brushing the snow off Leia's bottom, before grabbing the edge of the slider and lifting it up and handing it to his wife. He scooped up his daughter, and they headed to the conveyor ramp that would take the back to the top of the hill.

They repeated the process half a dozen times, until Jaina's cries of delight began to fade, and she began to complain about a cold nose and fingers. But she was still asking, "Again?" as they reached the bottom of the slope.

"I don't know, Jai. I'm starting to get awfully cold. Maybe Daddy would like to treat us to more hot cocoa to warm up?"

"Cocoa?" They'd created a tiny monster, obsessed with the sweet, tasty beverage.

"Well, if ladies are asking me nicely, I could probably be convinced…." Han winked, as he helped them both to their feet.

"Please, Daddy? Can we got get cocoa? Mamma's cold."

"Can't have her getting cold on us. Think there's a cafe just inside the complex."

He returned the slider to the booth, then swept Jaina out of Leia's arms into his own, making the trek down the slightly icy path easier and faster. He wouldn't admit it, but he was cold, too, and the idea of a hot drink was appealing.

"So you got another full day tomorrow?"

"Yes, and you've got the closing dinner with me." His grumble was more for show than anything else, as was her eyeroll in response. "We can either leave after that, or stay til the next morning. They're calling for a snowsquall that afternoon, so we should get out before that hits."

"Leaving in the evening is a great excuse for getting out of the dinner early."

"But then we'd have to wake her up to get her to the Falcon."

"We could leave the dinner real early, before she goes to sleep." He sounded hopeful, though he knew there was no chance of that happening.

"It doesn't even kick off until 2000. There's no way we can get out before her bedtime."

"Early wakeup it is then."

They entered the habitation complex, and headed for the cafe, slowly opening coats and peeling back layers as they went. Leia and Jaina settled into a table as Han went for drinks. When he returned, their daughter was half asleep, head resting on her mother's arm and eyes bleary.

"Worn out kiddo?" He put a child sized cocoa in front of her, topped with an adult-sized dollop of whipped cream.

"No," she said stubbornly. "Can we come back tomorrow?"

"Gotta do something to fill the day while Mom's working. We could go skating, if you wanna."

"Wanna do this again. Again."

"Whatever you want, Jai." He was fine capping off this trip with more sliding, or with just sitting here with cocoa and his family.

Leia seemed to read his mind. "This isn't far from the meeting hall. If you two come back here, I can probably meet you for lunch."

"That sounds like we got a lunch date, right?"

They all tucked in to their cocoa and enjoyed the spreading feeling of warmth, within and without.

Han had gone down to the Falcon ahead of them, to get her all warmed up and ready to fly, and most of the baggage had followed along with him and a droid. So when Leia and Jaina arrived at the ship, they were unencumbered by more than Jaina's small pack. As they rounded the turn of the landing pads to reach the ship, they slowed, and Leia looked down at her daughter, seeing a twinkle of mischief that she knew was matched in her own-Han frequently said it was frightening how well the girl mimicked her looks. Their shared Force connection helped, too, though Jaina was still too young to fully understand or control it.

It took no words, though, for them to mutually agree to hunker down behind the same-now larger-snow drift that they'd based themselves behind the day they'd arrived. And as they waited, they began making snowballs. Between the two of them, there were nearly a dozen by the time the third member of their family walked down the ramp of the Falcon.

After a few moments went by, Han eventually came down the ramp with a good deal of his former smuggler's caution in evidence. He edged down slowly, and Jaina glanced at Leia, who shook her head, and they waited. Only when he drew even with the final strut of the landing ramp, fully exposed to them, did Leia nod.

Simultaneously they launched two snowballs, assisted with a bit of the Force from Leia. Both hit Han squarely in the chest, drawing an outraged squawk from him as he dove, not for a sheltering snowbank, but straight towards them. They all tumbled backwards into the snow, shrieking first then laughing. Han swept Jaina up into his arms and sat up, just as she smashed another handfull of snow into his hair. He frowned, but Leia laughed as she knelt next to them.

"Truce?" She extended a hand to him as she made it to her feet.

He scowled for a moment, then whispered into Jaina's ear. Both of them looked at her, then back at each other. He shifted Jaina in his arms, then reached for Leia's hand. As she took it, she realized it was full of snow, and drew back quickly.

"That is decidedly against the idea of truce!"

"We didn't agree to a truce."

"We huh?" She reached forward enough to tickle Jaina's side. The girl giggled and buried her face in Han's vest, then turned to her.

"Truce! Truce!" cried Jaina.

"Truly this time?" She raised an eyebrow, looking not at her daughter but at her husband, who still had a twinkle in his eye.

"Yes!"

"Han?"

"Yeah," he said with his trademark grin. "Let's call truce and head home."

"I wanna go home!" chimed in Jaina.

Leia wrapped an arm around Han's waist, tucking in close to both of them. "Then let's go home, where it's warm. I want to sit on the balcony in the sun for a week."

Han ushered them all towards the ramp, bouncing Jaina on his hip. "That sounds like a great plan. Y'can turn up the heaters up on the bunks if you want, too. Or just stay close like this." His lips brushed the crown of her head as they reached the top of the ramp, and he passed Jaina over to her.

Smacking the control to close the ramp, he sealed up the ship, and they were on their way home.


End file.
